Lore is created for instructors to design their own MOOC type courses without needing adoption by a whole school or district. Most importantly, creating a course is unbelievably SIMPLE. Not sure what a MOOC is? A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is (usually free), open course offered by a teacher or university for anyone willing to learn. It is a student and community centered place for learning developed by university students. In Lore, teachers control who is in the network through use of a class membership code. Course materials, tests, and grades can be added and managed through Lore. Teachers can contact students and decide what to make public or private. Students are able to interact with and learn from each other. Learning becomes more interactive and extends beyond the classroom. Lore also features a discussion area, calendar, library, and gradebook. Each student and teacher have profiles which others can follow. Teachers and students can create academic groups for learning. Teachers can create a group with other teachers to develop a PLN.

Not sure where to begin or not ready to start on your own? Use elements of ready-made courses at Lore to experiment and enrich your curriculum. Search through the popular courses to look at what other teachers and professors are offering.

In the Classroom

Create your course and offer it to your students for greater interaction and learning through community building. Find great ideas from other existing courses. Teachers of gifted can use courses to challenge students in their areas of interest. You can also have gifted students create or collaborate on a student-made "course." Explore the topics yourself for some new, engaging topics to round out your own expertise. Allow students to enroll in a course that would fit into their career goals as an exploratory opportunity in that field.

This is an extensive "hotlist" of sites and lessons to be used on the SMART Board. In addition there are many tutorials to help you learn about the SMART Board. This collection covers mainly grades K-5 and all subject areas. However, there are also some resources for secondary level. The topics vary greatly, and the quantity of websites is impressive. Some items will require you to have Smart Board software installed on your computer to open the files. Some files will work using the SMART Notebook Express online viewer reviewed here. Some of the resources shared are created in the United Kingdom. American English speakers may notice some slight spelling differences. Please note: some of the resources are websites that could be used on any brand of interactive whiteboard (or computer) and are not strictly Smart Board resources.

In the Classroom

These lessons are great for the new SMART Board user or the seasoned pro. Stop and think before you start about how to use them in a student centered lesson, trying some of the lesson formats that help you avoid being "Vanna." View the lessons as is or use them to help you create your own lesson. Use the training videos to help your teaching peers and new SMART Board users learn how to use the SMART Board. Many of these tools could be used on any brand of Interactive Whiteboard.

This open source, collaborative mapping site is known as the "Wikipedia of maps." This easily editable map is up to date as locations change (as they often do). The license just requires you to credit OpenStreetMap, and you can copy, download, and amend the maps without limitation.

In the Classroom

Use any part of this map for your school projects. Share the maps on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Copy, download, or alter maps as needed. The license requires crediting OpenStreetMap. Build completely new maps around a specific theme or concept, such as walking, hiking, bicycling, routes for those with disabilities, among others. Create projects traveling through various areas around various themes such as places to eat, sleep, or play. Students create stories about stopping in these places to share with others. If you teach geography, this one's a must. It is also helpful for showing students WHERE a story or news event takes place. If you teach map skills or teach about how communities grow, be sure to share this map to show how maps can change when a new street or highway is built. If you have a new road in your area, show the difference between this map and older ones that can be found online. Challenge students to compare this map to others.

Find free, scalable vector images created by a community of designers whose goal is to create a universal global language of symbols that everyone can understand. Vector files are images that do not change or become fuzzy when you resize them. Communicating visually is powerful and easy using symbols like these. Move beyond language and cultural barriers in learning and communicating by using these symbols. You must set up a free account to actually download. Note: Many programs cannot use the file format (SVG) but some programs, such as Adobe Illustrator, can. Don't have a program to open the image? Download the image, then upload to the Media Converter (reviewed here) to convert the image. No need to open the file- just convert! Note that the use of these vector images is FREE if the artist(s) attribution is easily viewable and accessible (linked back to the artist's page on the Noun Project site). Many images are in the public domain with no attribution required. Ethical use would still give credit. If you do not want to attribute each time it is used, icons can be purchased for unlimited use instead. Be patient. This site is often SLOW to open and offers slow downloads because of the larger image files.This site includes advertising.

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The symbols are useful for autistic support, emotional support, ESL/ELL, and even in world languages. Use these vector diagrams for creating infographics and pictograms in any content area. Use a site such as Easel.ly, reviewed here or Venngage reviewed here. Challenge students to tell a rebus-style story using simple symbols only. This is a fun and imaginative way for students to think creatively. Use these symbols to create classroom signs. Teach students digital citizenship along with creativity by learning to give credit for resources used as they explain. Try using icons like these in the navigation area of a wiki or class website instead of words to increase the accessibility to others. Be sure to include this site as a list of resources for students to use on your wiki or class website. Students can access images to tell their story or to relate/teach content to others. Encourage students to create their own symbols for use in telling a story (great if students have access to programs that can create vector images). Special ed teachers may want to use these symbols on communication boards. Note: since file downloads are slow, you may want to download a collection for your specific lesson or project outside of class time and offer the files to students locally in a shared folder or on a class wiki. Teachers of non-readers will find these symbols useful in making classroom rules or signs.

Create a word search in a few easy steps. You can choose the size of the puzzle (10 x 10 to 100 x 100) as well as how many words the puzzle contains. You can also choose the highlight color, background color, font size and "word management." Word management allows you the choice of words being forward and backward, diagonal, up and down, and more. Options allow for the puzzle to be played online or printed out.

In the Classroom

Use this resource to help students review spelling words or other content related vocabulary. Change the font to a larger size and print it out for young children or students that have vision issues. Have students create word searches for other students to take. Learning support teachers might want to have partners create word searches as a review activity for terms.

Find an extensive collection of art and drama lesson plans for use in all grade levels. Choose a grade level from categories on the left side of the page. Pick from sub-categories such as type of medium, art period, or artist. One particularly useful category is by integration: ideas you can choose for lessons in subjects such as health, science, or language arts. Once you choose a lesson title, specific details include materials used, appropriate age levels, instructions, and images of projects. Many, but not all lessons also include correlation to national standards. Click on the printer friendly link to print lessons without all the clutter on the page.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Bookmark and save this site as a resource for art projects throughout the year, especially if budget cuts have taken away your art teacher! Be sure to check out the link to Sub Lessons. Print and save a couple of these to have in your substitute folder for use if necessary. Share with your art teacher (if you have one) as a resource.

ShutterCal is a photo-based calendar site. Sign-up and upload an image each day to view a beautiful photo calendar created from your own images. Create an account using email, password, and user name. Click on the date, upload an image, add a caption, then submit. ShutterCal resizes the image and places it into the calendar. Share your calendar using the unique url provided. Embed into your website or blog using the code offered under the "My stuff" link. Premium features allow your calendar to be private; however, that isn't included with the free membership. This is a public site that isn't moderated. So preview any other calendars you plan to share.

In the Classroom

What a wonderful way to share your school year! Create a ShutterCal calendar to embed into your classroom blog or website. Forget a day? No problem, just click on the date and upload as usual. Have your student of the week be responsible for taking pictures for that week's calendar (and for uploading if savvy). This is a public site and content is not moderated. Take precautions when allowing students to view other calendars. In primary grades, a teacher can prepare a calendar for parents to access at home and have children talk about what they have learned. During science units, document the plants you grow or the labs you do using images on a daily calendar. Speech/language or ESL/ELL teachers can create calendars together with students to provide ways to practice oral language retelling events. Teacher-librarians can create calendars with a book a day or research questions shown as images.

Bundlr allows you to curate, clip, aggregate, and share web content easily and instantly. Collect content on your own or collaborate with other Bundlr users to add sites to bundles. Sign up with Bundlr using Twitter or Facebook to begin. Drag the bookmarklet to your toolbar or install the browser extension. Add pages, images, tweets, and more to your bundles by clicking the Bundle button. Add notes to bundles or invite others to collaborate. Share finished bundles with the share button provided to popular social media sites or via email. This site is NOT moderated for school use. Please PREVIEW before you share.

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Not ready to create your own bundles? Explore the site for ready-made bundles created by others for many topics. This site is not moderated, so it is best to explore on your own to locate bundles then share your appropriate findings. Share bundles on your projector or interactive whiteboard. Create bundles for any content or topic to share with students on your web page or blog. In primary grades, you can create bundles for different types of practice activities, even for non-readers. With older students, create a class account and allow students to add websites, images, tweets, and information to bundles, giving them the opportunity to curate and provide information on any subject. Talk about how to curate and decide which sites should be included and which ones excluded.

This free tool is an academic search engine that uses resources trusted by educators. Choose from various subjects at the top or enter your search term directly into the search bar. Infotopia uses a Google Custom search to find information that is appropriate for students.This site includes advertising.

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Share this site with students in class. Have students use this site for research. Be sure to link to this site on your blog, wiki, or class website. Make this site the home page for your classroom computer.

FileLab audio editor allows you to edit, clean up, and apply effects to many types of audio files. This site/application will only run on Microsoft Windows operating systems. Launch the editor and download the FileLab app through the provided link. Upload any audio file from your computer to begin. Choose from audio effects such as amplify, fade, delay, reverse and more to edit changes. Add changes with the Generate tab such as silence, noises, signals, and chirps. Trim your audio to any length desired. When complete, choose the make audio button to save to your computer in one of many common formats. Sign in is required to save audio files using Facebook, Google, or Yahoo.

In the Classroom

Record your class singing or compositions to share with parents on your website or blog. Record and edit sound to be included with PowerPoint presentations. Use with a creative writing project to record stories for selected images. Record speeches, create podcasts, record students learning world languages, create radio advertisements as part of a writing project, the ideas are endless!

Use this free online plagiarism checker to make sure your work is unquestionably your own. Depending on the amount of traffic the site is experiencing, results may appear online immediately, or they may be emailed within 15 minutes. Our test showed that the email took a little over 15 minutes and included a log-in password to view the results. The report tells how much of the writing is non-unique and how many sources the writing can be found in. By clicking on the highlighted sentences, the report will list all the sources where the highlighted portion can be found. Plagtracker works with six different languages, checks 14 billion web pages, and has access to university databases. It can check over 5 million academic papers. You do not have to sign up for an account to occasionally check written work. However, signing up for a free account allows you to save a report for a week, monitor the status of submitted documents, and review the history of all your plagiarism reports. On the site's blog, you will find true stories about plagiarism. The site does NOT take ownership of your submitted work. They do try to "sell" their services to help you improve your paper.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Teachers can use this program to check student papers for originality, but why not introduce this program to your students and have them take responsibility to check their work themselves? Share the site on your projector or interactive whiteboard. This would work beautifully if the class studied or reviewed copyright and plagiarism before assigning a report. On Plagtracker's blog you can find true stories about people who have plagiarized. It might be a good idea to share the stories with your students. You might even want students to "test" several examples of plagiarized writing in small groups as an exercise for students to check and correct. Ideally this should happen before they copy/paste their way to trouble in a research assignment. Another interesting exercise for researchers is to locate an article on a how-to topic, such as "How to Paint a Room," then see how many sites use the same text. As a class, discuss whether this proliferation is good or bad (is the web spreading misinformation, too?).

The U.S. Department of State designed this interactive game to help ESL/ELL learners to learn American English. However, many non-ESL/ELL students could greatly benefit (and enjoy) this highly interactive experience and look at U.S. culture. Download Unity Player to begin. Registration is free, but does require an email address. Begin your mission with Trace, a teen back in time from the year 2045. Help Trace return to his regular time by completing several challenges. Trace must follow directions (called objectives) on each screen. He travels to 8 separate locations around the U.S. Learn about entrepreneurship, community activism, empowering women, science and innovation, environmental conservation, and conflict resolution. Travel to Kansas, New Orleans, the Grand Canyon, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Complete 28 practice activities. You will also find 4 multi-player practice challenges, 7 graphic novels for extension activities, and an American English dictionary integration activity. The game is so involved, that you will not even realize that you are also learning English.

In the Classroom

This site offers a window on American culture that you can use in comparing cultures. It is a great way to engage ESL/ELL teens as they practice English skills. Since the State Department created it, an AP Civics or Government class might even want to critique or discuss its portrayal of U.S. culture. Have ESL/ELL students work on individual laptops and explore this site alone or with a partner. Provide this link for students to access both in and out of the classroom. Challenge your students to collaboratively write the dialogue for an additional visit Trace might make to a community near you using Google Docs/Drive reviewed here. Your more technologically savvy students may like to create another version of a Trace visit to go along with the dialog! In a world language class, have students work collaboratively to create a visit to a cultural site using this game as a model.

The Literacy Design Collaborative supports the development of literacy through a series of templates for use with text when writing. There are also templates for other subjects. Most templates address secondary levels; however, other offerings contain some elementary templates. Template tasks allow you to fill in the blank with learning skills addressed. When completed, you create and produce a high-quality assignment. Three collections are available by choosing the tasks link: the template task collection II, Common Core template tasks, and K-2 template tasks. Use links provided to view instructions and download templates in PDF format. Choose the modules link to view and download complete modules for instruction for English, Science, and Social Studies. Also available at the Literacy Design Collaborative is a series of videos demonstrating changing teacher practice and literacy. Most of the videos are hosted on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, then they may not be viewable. You could always view the videos at home and bring them to school (or your meeting) "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as KeepVid reviewed here to download the videos from YouTube.

In the Classroom

This site is an excellent resource for schools implementing Common Core Standards. Share this site during professional development sessions to view and learn how to use the templates and modules in the classroom. Share the videos on an interactive whiteboard and have groups discuss afterwards. View videos from the site during these sessions to understand the framework behind the templates. Download templates and modules for use in your classroom for any content or use templates as a model for creating your own templates.

Students are often in a quandary about finding words in a dictionary they do not know how to spell. Share this video and they will enjoy the humorous banter between two friends while learning to find a word they cannot spell. One needs to find a word he cannot spell, and the other gives several demonstrations of just how to use the dictionary without knowing the exact spelling for a word. Although TV411 was originally created for adult English Language students, this video could be useful in any secondary English classroom.

In the Classroom

Use this video as an introduction to dictionary skills. ESL/ELL students will benefit from this introduction to puzzling spelling and the use of phonetics, as well. Have students create their own comics to explain other phonetic hints they want to share with classmates such as the "ph" sounds like "f" illustration from the video. Have students create an online or printed comic using one of the tools and ideas included in this collection.

A poet uses one of his creations to explain the usage and choice of appropriate synonyms and antonyms. He refers the listener to the thesaurus to try the same technique he demonstrated. The tv411 videos were originally created for the adult English language learner, however, they could be useful to all secondary students. Please preview any video clip that you wish to share.

In the Classroom

Use this video clip as an introduction to word study and synonym and antonym usage. Share the video on your projector or interactive whiteboard. Challenge students to create a word cloud of synonyms and antonyms they might use, using a tool such as Wordle reviewed here. Have students write a simple poem and then several iterations using their new found synonym and antonym knowledge.

This short video creates a situation where it is necessary to choose synonyms to avoid using the same word repeated times. It goes on to explain how to use a conventional thesaurus. It uses the overly repeated word from the first situation to examine a thesaurus entry, and it explains how to know which group of thesaurus words to choose from. Although tv411 was originally created for English language learners (mainly adults), much of the content would be useful with secondary students. Preview the video before you share with your class.

Are you looking to clean up your formative assessment process in your classroom? Laundry Day is a formative assessment strategy where students "clean up" what they don't know about a topic. Students select a laundry detergent (Tide, Gain, Bold, and Cheer). These will be their cooperative learning groups to improve, reinforce, or enrich their understanding of the lesson. Students select the Tide detergent if they feel the information is a tidal wave coming down on them. Gain is the detergent selected by students who understand the basics, but need more assistance. Students select the Bold detergent if they are confident with the material, but they have a few questions. Cheer represents the students needing enrichment activities for the unit of instruction. Each detergent is scaffolded for student success and represents a readiness level for the assessment. Students use their homework and previous assessments/activities to determine which detergent has the appropriate activities.

In the Classroom

Laundry day allows your students to take ownership of their learning. It also allows the teacher to move around the classroom to assist students and monitor engagement. Post the activities on your learning management site, blog, wiki, or website for students to easily navigate the different "detergents." Provide the learning opportunities online to allow the students to navigate through the different levels. They can work alone, in pairs, or in groups to promote collaboration. Link videos and resources for the students to access to enrich or support the material. For best results, you will want to use this strategy over and over so students become conversant with the terms and strategies.

Use laundry day as an activity to pre-assess your students as well. What detergent did they chose at the beginning of the unit? Students could write a blog post or send an email on the detergent they selected at the of the unit. Have students create blogs. If you are beginning the process of integrating technology, have students create blogs sharing their learning and understanding using Loose Leaves, reviewed here. This blog creator requires no registration.

Exobrain is an easy to use brainstorming and mind mapping tool. Register using email and a password to begin creating a board with "nodes." Give the central node a name then drag your mouse to create additional nodes. Create links between nodes by dragging a line between them or remove links by hovering over the line and clicking the scissors. Free accounts allow for three cloud-based maps. Access using the unique url generated for each mind map. The introductory video requires Flash, the remainder of the site does not. Be aware: maps can be viewed publicly. Be sure to check your district policy on publishing student work online.This site includes advertising.

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Use this resource to map out a poem, story, or novel students are reading. Use in managing (and even color-coding) information in any content area. Assess prior knowledge with a class brainstorm. Use as a plan for projects to show all information and all steps for its completion. This would also be a great tool for group projects for your students or even in YOUR grad classes! Teachers in lower grades can create whole class maps together. Share the maps on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Since you can only create three maps for free, you might want to compare with other mind-mapping tools reviewed at the TeachersFirst Edge.

Dream Quest One offers a poetry and writing contest. The contest currently takes place annually in winter and summer. On the main page you can find out the criteria, how to enter, deadlines, and the prizes! Find a variety of writing ideas by looking at featured past winners and viewing examples of quality writing. Past poetry winners (and their works) can be found at the link Poetry Place. Find past winners and tips at Write This Way!. Visit the link for Free Stuff to view lots of free clipart, poetry Ebooks, writing Ebooks, a 54 page Writers Guide, and more. Be aware: there are nominal competition fees ($5 - poem, $10 - story). You need not actually enter to find great writing ideas.This site includes advertising.

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Help students overcome writer's block by exploring this site. Motivate your students with the many writing contests given (for a fee) or do them locally for free. The resources provide a direction for students and teachers to explore in the world of writing and poetry. Explore the many ways to encourage writing using the Internet resources. Use the free ebooks as printed material for your poetry study during poetry month or a unit on poetry. Examine the writing ebook given. Encourage groups to make their own ebook of writing tips. Challenge students to use a site such as Ourboox, reviewed here. Ourboox creates beautiful page-flipping digital books in minutes, and you can embed video, music, animation, games, maps and more.

Would you like to read about GOOD news for a change? That is exactly what you will get if you subscribe to this news aggregator. At Good.is, read about conservation success stories, educating farmers in remote rural villages to increase their crop yield, creating entrepreneurs who design change, inspiring stories about pets, and so much more. What a refreshing way to start the day! Don't misinterpret that description: you will also be updated on current news stories. The choice is yours. Create a free account, choose topics of interest, and sign up for the daily free newsletter to read what's new (and positive) for those topics. If you find something you are truly passionate about you can follow people, and you can contribute articles.This site includes advertising.

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Good.is is perfect for enrichment, research, or a current events class. Include it on your class web page (if you are comfortable with the description: a community of people who give a d---) for students to access both in and out of class. Have students try out this site on individual computers, or as a learning center. For students who enjoy current events, Good.is is a terrific source of up-to-the-minute positive stories from across the web. There is advertising, but it is not too intrusive. Use this site as one of several current event options when asking students to find real world connections to curriculum topics. You can always send students directly to the full articles on their original sites to avoid displaying the Good.is frame at the top. Use articles as writing prompts for blog posts or practice writing informational texts or persuasive writing.